Authorities admit: Russians will have to work more to be paid a better retirement benefit

October 05, 2012, 13:30 UTC+3The Ministry of Labor published the draft strategy on its official website for public discussion

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MOSCOW, October 5 (Itar-Tass) — Today, Russia’s Ministry of Labor is to submit to the Federation Council upper parliament house a draft strategy of the long-term development of the pension reform till the year 2030. When the draft was discussed on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets pledged the reform in no way means that retirement age would be raised. The government, according to her, grants people the right to earn a decent pension in, say, ten years of working life.

The Ministry of Labor published the draft strategy on its official website for public discussion, the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper writes. The government words the key motif of the would-be reform as follows: “If you pay 20 percent of your salary for 40 years, you will be paid a retirement benefit of 40 percent of the salary for 20 years.” So, according to the government’s design, if you start your working career at the age of 20-25, you will work up to your desired pension of 40 percent of an average monthly wages by 60-65.

Presently, an average retirement benefit in the country is 9,700 rubles’, notes the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. The figure is about 37 percent of an average salary. As a matter of fact, this is one of the world’s biggest substitution ratio, which cannot be said about the average salary. The authorities see it as their task to keep this high ratio. According to the government’s calculations, the ratio will drop to 24 percent, if the situation remains as it is. So, the reform is designed as a means to bring it up to 40 percent.

The new system will replace the existing one, when pensioners have to work while retired to make ends meet, chairman of the Russian Union of Pensioners Valeri Ryazansky told the Kommersant daily. According to the Union’s statistics, some 12.5 million out of 38 million Russian pensioners are opting to continue working because of small retirement benefits and also because they want to be socially engaged and useful. “The new principle is like this: work more and earn your own retirement benefit,” he said. According to Ryazantsev, most of people who are nearing the retirement age now have “about forty years of employment history.” As for the gender aspect, the expert sees no contradiction in leveling time of employment for both sexes: women as a rule live longer than men.